Agent computing applications in distributed satellite systems

Space and satellite systems are considered to be the most extreme environment to design for and are fraught with engineering difficulty. Performance metrics such as fault tolerance, reliability, pre-determinism and heritage are still high of the list of requirements for all missions. But with the advent of modern day electronics, greater computing capability and networking technologies have enabled research into distributed satellite systems, where multiple spacecraft work collaboratively to perform a mission. Leveraging from these technologies, a satellite can be considered one of many nodes in an autonomous system. This paper proposes the use of an Agent based computing platform to solve orbit dynamics problems leading to a highly mobile and decentralized system. The latest Agent platforms are compared and possible Agent applications are presented; specifically, distributed image compression and a novel topology reconfiguration scheme.